Memorial

Agamemnon knocked on the door to Kubler's room, waited until his friend called out then entered.  The farmer was knelt before a huge canvas, five metres long, on which he had sketched in charcoal a great scene that he was now beginning to paint.

"Hi Kay, am I interrupting?"

Kubler looked up and shook his head, pulling the paintbrush from his mouth and tucking it behind his ear.  "No, not at all, come in Grazh."

Agamemnon nodded, and closed the door behind him as he entered.  "Thanks, I wasn't sure if you were spending time with your family."  He shuffled past the canvas and sat down on a stool behind his friend.

"Not at the moment," Kubler shook his head.  "I'm remembering the fight."

"It was a good fight," the cleric nodded.  "We lost very few people."

"Nine soldiers.  I'm remembering Carath at the moment."  He pointed to the figure he was painting, a dark-skinned, hefty man with a spear.  "He was near me when he died."

Agamemnon looked closely.  The painter had only blocked in the colours at this point but it was already a vital, energetic figure, one small man on a large canvas full of activity.  The scene looked to portray the whole field of battle, from the castle gate out to the forest from which the horde had poured.  The composition had the great evil trees as hulking patches of darkness rolling with inevitable momentum down towards the light of the castle, with the army frozen in dynamic assault on the encroaching flood of unnatural foes.  A great sheet of fire backlit the pre-dawn skirmishing and from the shadows this created, eyes leered and claws reached as the studs of the army's battledress gleamed in reflected fire.

"My biggest regret, my friend, is that one day you will remember me, and I won't be here to see it."

Kubler nodded in thanks for the compliment and continued bringing the scene to life as Agamemnon looked around the room.  Kubler had been here for a couple of months now and the room was filled with canvases of all sizes.  Some were hung, some on stands, most just piled together, sheets between them to keep them in good condition.

"Have you seen Emi yet today?"

Kubler nodded.  "Just briefly.  She was still asleep when I woke up."

'Briefly'.  Agamemnon looked around for a small picture and found one, a cameo in a round frame, stood on the bedside table, a portrait of a very pretty woman lying in bed, smiling with sleepy eyes through the wisps of her short-cropped blonde hair.  The paint was still just a little wet.  "Hi Emi," he said quietly as he looked at the face of Kubler's lovely wife, still alive in the picture.

"Jez is out in the field today, climbing hay bales with Darran."

"Darran?"  Agamemnon raised an eyebrow.  "I thought she wasn't talking to him anymore."

Kubler shrugged.  "Apparently she has forgiven him for putting a frog in her hat."

"How old is she now?  Fifteen?"

Kubler nodded.  "Sixteen in a couple of months."

"Ah," the cleric smiled.  "I see."

Kubler grinned.  "It was always going to be Darren.  We've known that since they were twelve."  For a moment a look of incredible sadness crossed his face and his eyes watered, just briefly.  "They should have been together."

Agamemnon put a hand on his friend's shoulder.  "They may yet be."  He looked around and saw the canvas, bright with the yellow-green of freshly-bound hay, and, just behind a large hillock of grass, two heads just peaking out.  He laughed.  "Yeah, I think they may yet be.  Do you want some tea?"

Kubler nodded.  "Yes please."

~~~

"So, what are you going to do with the painting?"  The orc and the farmer were sitting in the windowbox, looking out at the fields around Dejune as they drank their tea.

"It's for the town, so they can remember what they did, and those who didn't make it."

"I'll talk to Shades.  I am sure there is a suitable place where it can be displayed."